Living in a hostel comes with a lot of experiences. You will expect some of these experiences, such as no privacy, lots of partying, and occasional sleep-disrupting sex. Others, you never learn about until you live for a long time in a hostel. One of the hardest to go through is when people leave, the hostel farewells.

When you are traveling and remain in only one location for a couple of days, you do not experience people leaving because you are the person going. The people that are staying for an extended period of time have a different experience. They start to build connections with other long-termers, and when one leaves, people can get very emotional.

The longer you stay in one hostel, the more you see the emotional goodbyes. Eventually, they are so common that you choose not to get super close to others so that you don’t have to go through another emotional goodbye. This feeling has happened to me numerous times during my stay in Cairns. I had many nights where I choose to stay in my room rather than meet new people, who I would have to say goodbye to in a couple of weeks or less. I didn’t always do this, but it happened a few times over the past year and a half.

Many people reach the next stage when they realize they are not doing anything with anyone. At this point, you begin to search for a small group of people to make into close friends who will stick around for a long time. Because you know these people will stick around, you feel comfortable investing the time into a strong connection with them. These are the best people you will travel with. They are also the ones you know you will see again in the future, no matter what direction your travels take you.

When you have a small group of close friends, you will create a lot of incredible memories. Because you go on so many adventures together, splitting is more emotionally draining than anyone else you have met. Saying goodbye to someone who falls in this category is one of the most emotional things I have ever seen. People always shed tears on these occasions.

Saying hostel farewells is never easy because inside, you are worried that you will never see the person again. There are some things you can do to make it easier, though. The first thing I do is I never say goodbye to anyone I want to see again. I always tell them some variation of “see you later” or “until next time”. These phrases feel less final than goodbye. Another thing that helps me is fully believing that we will meet again in the future. All you have to do is make sure you have a way of staying in contact to make plans for a future trip.

Thinking about the future trip when you reunite will put a smile on your face. From personal experience, I can tell you that a reunion between friends after years of not seeing each other is entirely magical. This magical feeling is what makes the hostel farewells bearable for me.

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